MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd May, 2022) Turkey cannot "put aside" Stockholm's sanctions against Ankara when discussing Sweden's NATO membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Earlier, the Financial Times reported that Turkey had blocked the start of the process of considering the application for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Erdogan said that Ankara cannot say "yes" to the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO, because it cannot believe their assurances about relations with representatives of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is banned in Turkey. If Turkey agrees, NATO, according to Erdogan, "will not be a security organization, but will become a place where there will be many representatives of terrorists." Countries cannot be accepted into an alliance without the unanimous approval of all its members.
"While the vital role we play in NATO and the international organizations of which we are members is obvious, some of our allies are still talking about the lifting of sanctions. We cannot put aside the Swedish sanctions against us," Erdogan said.
